Paper Body

Skin once. Like once vellum was.

When my body becomes paper,
containment of self (a vaporous thing) is nearly impossible
and my place in the world becomes questionable.

Paper knees crackle and fold and tear
I can’t go anywhere

without falling apart.

I can hardly believe I still hold this teacup.
A poem on my wrist keeps the parchment hand attached.

Ink sutures.

This paper head won’t hold
the weight of consciousness,
let alone support the arc of a long thought.

Gnat-thoughts dance gibberish around my sad old eyes.

blinkblinkblink

lizard brain vellum paper skin of a calf tissue
dictionary disbound torn words paper whisper wind

gonegonegone

In the paper body I cannot even say,
“I am here.”

—after the imagined sculpture “Embodiment Simulacrum”, handmade paper, vellum, ink, cotton thread, torn, stitched, folded, 14” (from work in progress Oracular & Ekphrastic Poems: Imagined Art)

somnambulist, water, waking

i was hunger and anxiety, a production in silk,
wasps, and doomed
aspirations, sleepwalking drunk

on the rogue whiskey of men
who dissolved the sugar of me
and left

my bones on fire
inside, skin so tender
a glance gave me hives.

i wished on all first stars
and every moon rolling fat through the night
for waves to take it all

as water always will
the itch the sea the salt
the saving.

Zann Carter writes poetry and short fiction in Terre Haute, IN. and then works with fiber arts to get out of her head and back into the body. She co-hosts a monthly open reading now in its 17th year and has created workshops focused on navigating a path through grief with expressive art. Her work has been published in SageWoman, Witches & Pagans, Misfit Magazine, Dream Pop Journal, Atlas and Alice, and Driftwood Press and the anthology Erase the Patriarchy from University of Hell Press. Her always-under-construction website: zanncarter.com